The University of Utah Press is pleased to announce that Shannon Novak’s volume House of Mourning: A Biocultural History of the Mountain Meadows Massacre has been selected as the winner of the 2010 Society for Historical Archaeology James Deetz Book Award. With a very competitive field of nominations, the Deetz Prize is considered a highly prestigious award in the field of archaeology.
House of Mourning provides a sensitive and in-depth look at the victims of the 1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre where some 120 men, women, and children from the Arkansas hills were murdered by Mormon militiamen. Throughout the book, Novak moves beyond the question of motive to the question of loss. Who were the victims at Mountain Meadows? How had they settled and raised their families in the American South, and why were they moving west once again? What were they hoping to find or make for themselves at the end of the trail? By integrating archival records and oral histories with the first analysis of skeletal remains from the massacre site, Novak offers a detailed and sensitive portrait of the victims as individuals, family members, cultural beings, and living bodies.
The Deetz Award is named for James Deetz (1930-2000), whose books are classics both for professional archaeologists and non-specialists. Deetz’s accessible and entertaining style of writing gave his books influence that extended well beyond the discipline. The award is intended to recognize books and monographs that follow Deetz’s example of crafting works that are engaging to and accessible by all potential readers.
The James Deetz award will be presented at the 2010 SHA conference, to be held at Amelia Island, Florida, January 6-9, 2010.
Founded in 1967, the Society for Historical Archaeology is the largest scholarly organization concerned with the archaeology of the modern world (A.D. 1400 to the present). SHA promotes scholarly research and the dissemination of knowledge concerning historical archaeology.
